


The chorus swells (Dies Irae)

by Rococospade



Series: Before the nightmare [3]
Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Body Horror, Companionable Snark, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Laurence is Not Okay, Laurence is disoriented, Lies, M/M, Nightmares, Platonic Cuddling, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29584353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rococospade/pseuds/Rococospade
Summary: It's not that Laurence dreams every night about what he's done or what he's failed to do. That would be preposterous.(He would like for his subordinates to pretend with him, but Ludwig's known him a little too long to bother. More's the pity.)[Gen or pre-slash. Warning for mild body dysphoria (not a trans character) and an onscreen panic attack]
Relationships: Laurence & Ludwig (Bloodborne), Laurence/Ludwig (Bloodborne)
Series: Before the nightmare [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120991
Kudos: 7





	The chorus swells (Dies Irae)

**Author's Note:**

> These two live rent-free in my head and it's unacceptable, they need to go. But they can't until the big pre-bloodborne fics are done. And the fix-it fic. And whatever else pops into my head at 3am like this monster.  
> Title is from a very old Catholic Hymn, Dies Irae. It can be heard here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlr90NLDp-0 if you'd like to listen)
> 
> Big thank you to MissMonie for her loving feedback; this was much improved thanks to her! And my insincere apologies to Myoutakara for dragging her into a discussion on it when she had *no* idea what I was talking about.

The smell of smoke choked him. It smelled like roasting meat and singed hair, accelerant, the sharp ozone scent of Miracles (so, so few of them could work Miracles, and time had only whittled that number), melting tar, ammonia, and the acrid stink of straw going up in a kiln.

Everywhere echoed with the crackle and pop of flame, and the air was so blisteringly hot that his skin felt stretched too far and ached for it, and his eyes stung, watering from the heat and the bright and the awful dry wind.

There’s so much noise even under the roar: the crash of burning wood and caving roofs, and billows of smoke, and the yowls of beasts mingling with the screams of humans; sometimes one ripped from the same throat as the other, screams to howls and back again, the choir of the damned singing a melody for the ruined city to welcome it back to hell.

There are _so many inflicted_. They had never seen this; how couldn’t they have seen this? This was his punishment; it’s been years and years in coming but he never saw the shape of it before this day, the destruction of everything he should have been defending, if he hadn’t hesitated, if he hadn’t said _they were men how can we_ —

He hears himself give the order: _Shut the bridge_. The noise of the heavy iron gates crashing shut echoes around him, but he’s not behind the gate where the coolness of clean air teases their backs. No, he’s - he’s somewhere he hadn’t been, somewhere he should have been if there was any justice.

He’s standing on the landing just before the city and watching the conflagration. It catches on his skin, and he watches embers — little points of furious snow, glowing white universes of pain — land on his skin and eat at it, blossoming into patches of black ash. His skin burns — not red and tight and shiny the way it had when he first lived today, his judgement day, his last day as a human being.

No, the flame eats away with the same vicious hunger it consumes paper and bone, and he watches the edges of it glow like red iron.

The people — nameless faceless blurs, except for their screaming; gods, but that’s clear as a bell’s toll — recoil from him. They cover their faces and they stagger back from him with little whimpers of fear, or else they run away from him. But there is nowhere safe to run: they rush into burning buildings or stagger off the cliff sides or into the arms of beasts. It's a slaughter. It can’t compare to the original, these phantoms, but it makes him _remember_.

Fire races along his limbs and consumes him, burns away what’s left of his shell, leaves him a smouldering slavering wreck on the stone landing of the old city. He’s aware enough to think it should hurt more, but not enough to wonder _why not?_ He feels hungry — he _remembers_ what it is to be hungry — he gathers himself up on uneven legs, and he crosses the gulf in a leap and reaches for the first likely meal with his jaws stretching wide—

#

Laurence wakes up.

This is not, technically, an unusual development. He does wake up every day, after all.

Still. It surprises him. He sits up, notes his heart pounding, the fever burn of his skin and the frigidness of the air, the window left open with its curtains drifting on a frost-scented wind. The conflagration had been in the winter, too, but the drier half of it.

Laurence reached for the bucket he kept by the desk and vomited.

Between heaves he tried to breathe, one after another, tears streaming down his face and shoulders shaking. He was too hot and too cold, like he was burning, like he’d been plunged in an ice bath. There’s a thin layer of sweat coating him and nothing could have been more repellent just then, he doesn’t want to be touched, it makes the roiling of his belly so much worse and the spasms come sharper and faster. 

Around the time his stomach is empty- it has been for a while, it’s just that it kept trying to bring up something it didn’t have- he hears the click of the office door. His breathing is ragged. He reaches for the cane on the floor, before he breathes in and realizes he knows the smell.

Rosmarinus, leather polish and weapon oil, and the crackle of the arcane. No scent of fire anymore, though he remembers—

“Laurence?”

… no, maybe it was only part of the nightmare.

“Laurence,” The invader repeats with more urgency, and crouches beside him. Laurence turns his eyes to them, catalogues the concerned expression and the robes of a prospector and the sheen of unnatural metal over one shoulder: a sword without explanation, whose magic sung with the voices of the beyond.

(He’s in his office, he’s safe. He’s not back there, not _yet_.)

Laurence took a breath, one after the other, until he isn’t shaking anymore, and he’s gathered up his control like pieces of armor or a cape he can cloak himself in. He drawls, “I’m _fine_ , Ludwig. What is it?”

The head of his Church hunters- his knight, his-… whatever one should categorize Ludwig as, stared at him with furrowed brows.

(His last friend? That was too depressing, wasn't it. But everyone had gone or died by now, everyone but him.)

Ludwig reached toward him, but didn’t touch. “Did you fall asleep on the floor, Laurence?” His hand hovered by Laurence’s cheek and neck, like he was thinking of cupping his jaw or checking his pulse. Which would have been silly. Laurence’s heart was pounding against his battered ribs, but every second he made himself breathe it would slow a little more.

Laurence glanced around the office and, seeing no other explanation, tentatively agreed to the one offered. “Yes.” Though he didn’t recollect it. Maybe skipping the meagre sleep he did need was catching up with him? He wasn’t thirty anymore. (Hell, he wasn’t forty anymore either.) 

“Why?” Ludwig asked, and he looked so concerned that Laurence almost laughed at him. The crackle of flames and the taste of burning hair were all that kept it down inside his chest.

“I… desired a nap, I suppose.”

Ludwig’s expression crept toward disbelief.

Laurence stared back at him evenly, because he might have been an absolute wreck sitting on the floor of his own office, with sweat making his hair cling and his robes all askew from the nightmare, but he was an excellent show at playing ‘everything is fine’.

(Sometimes he even convinced himself, if only for a moment.)

… unfortunately the thing about tricks was that the people closest to you tended to, with time and work (whyever did they bother? What was worthwhile for them to look below the surface?) learn to see the labour behind the slight-of-hand, as it were.

“You shouldn't sleep on the floor, you’ll hurt your back.” Ludwig murmured, then gave him a humorless little smile that still felt too bright and warm for the office.

Laurence wanted to freeze. He did not want—

When Ludwig touched his arm he leaned into it, shut his eyes, felt ashes clogging his mouth. “It’s not that I don't believe you.” Laurence rasped, “Simply that it hurts so often I am uncertain I’d notice the difference.”

His judgement day had come and gone, and he was alive. It wasn’t fair. Every day ticked down closer to the inevitable — the day he’d burn away for what he’d done.

He looked toward that future and thought, _finally, I will wake from this nightmare._

He looked toward that future and thought too of what he’d leave behind, and it was too early for all this roiling emotion; he had to grab for the bucket again.

Ludwig’s hand settled on his back, rubbed little soft too-warm circles. The heaves came with shakes, and Laurence clung to the metal of the bucket and tried to categorize the roughness of its texture and ground himself by it. It smelled like tin and iron under the vomit — similar enough to blood to give him pause, but not to make him dizzy. 

Ludwig touched his neck, his cheek — the touches little firebrands that left white stars burning wherever they brushed Laurence — hissed in a breath, and muttered, “Oh, yes, absolutely not, you are quite finished sleeping in here. Come along.”

And then he picked Laurence up, an affront for which Laurence should have at the least head-butted him for. 

He tried, but failed and somehow found himself laying his head on the expanse between Ludwig’s shoulder and throat instead, where he wondered how on earth he’d gotten so side-tracked.

… Ludwig smelled clean. He couldn't have been hunting before, which meant he’d just been… around.

“What were you doing?” He asked, annoyed at his grogginess, and the burr of his voice.

“Er. Finalizing patrol shifts. They’ll keep.” Ludwig assured, adjusting his grip so he could open the door without letting go of Laurence. “Say, could you hold my neck a moment and — yes, that’s a dear, thank you.”

Laurence had no recollection of reaching up. He pushed his clammy forehead to Ludwig’s cloak and tried to breathe. “Really don’t want to…”

_Be seen like this, sleep, exist. Die._

… He didn’t know what he wanted.

(Well that wasn’t true, he was pretty sure he didn’t want to burn. _Pretty_ sure.) 

“Nothing will happen to you,” Ludwig said with unwarranted confidence. “You are safe, Laurence.”

Laurence wanted to argue, wanted Ludwig to lose his temper and roll his eyes and call him exasperating, but the sky was spinning and he thought he could see the Amygdalae staring at them and maybe he should just keep his mouth shut. He breathed and breathed, tried to hum. Singing made things better, most times. It made the noise stop.

Ludwig kept glancing down at him, like if he didn't Laurence was going to flitter off in a strong wind. It was annoying, worse for Laurence feeling like there might be a bit of wisdom to it.

“You need to go home if you're exhausted, Vicar.” Ludwig chastened a block later, while he was half leaning on the wall with Laurence cradled against him, and trying to find Laurence’s key without actually putting Laurence down. It was not graceful, and it probably looked like something entirely different than what it was (which was Laurence, failing to be a damned adult, and Ludwig, failing to be sensible or pragmatic, and neither of them actually knowing where Laurence’s fucking house key had gotten off to somewhere between last night and just then).

Laurence wondered if the guards had given up for the night, or if Ludwig had avoided them by intention.

“I can stand by myself.” He said, though it was probably a lie on a rather large scale. “I’m fine.”

“Ha.” Ludwig sounded distracted, but then he had his hand in an inner pocket and was digging around and had probably just found Laurence’s collection of blood cocktails. (They weren’t for drinking. Really.) “You would say so with your legs gone and blood all trailing behind you- eugh, why did that- w-why are you carrying an _eye,_ Laurence.”

Laurence had no recollection. He said, “I was going to eat it later.”

Ludwig did not make a response to that. When Laurence opened his eye to look, his church hunter was giving him such a concerned look that he felt the need to clarify, “That was a jest.”

Ludwig blinked slowly and reached up to unlock the door. His eyes flickered, looking over the swath of darkness past the crack. “… You don’t actually remember, do you.”

“…” Laurence put his head back down and curled up a little tighter.

A heavy sigh moved Ludwig’s chest under him. Laurence tried to feel cold, but he couldn’t anymore.

The inside of the apartment was cold and dark, without even an ember in the grate.

(Laurence didn’t want fires in the apartment, not since—)

Ludwig laid him on one of the divans and then went away; Laurence could hear him locking the door up. The parlor was outsize and covered in embellishments; even in the dark, things shimmered like distant stars. And Laurence liked it better with the lights out, anyway, anyway: he’d never been made for the daytime, and the parlor was designed after a clear morning sky, for entertaining guests, and not to suit his tastes.

In the absence of Ludwig’s warmth he crawled across the furniture, opened a storage ottoman and started heaping out blankets beside him, with the mindless resolution of either a spoiled animal or an ill child. He didn’t want to think about it.

Ludwig came back and paused, possibly at the sight of Laurence half-buried in a veritable nest of quilts and duvets.

Laurence stared back, daring him to laugh, but Ludwig did not look amused.

No, Ludwig looked… a little sad, like maybe he was seeing something that used to be there and never would be again.

It made Laurence’s stomach clench, but nothing tried to come up this time. Small mercies. (He missed when they were all together. When no one ever looked at him like that, like he was fragile. Where had the time gone?)

Ludwig said, “I’m going to get you some water.”

And Laurence tried to argue, but what croaked out of him instead was “Do what you want,” and Ludwig rolled his eyes from the doorway and said,

“Don’t you think I am by now?” And then he walked away, the absolute bastard, and left Laurence behind to flounder in the dark and quiet.

He could hear the distant noise of Ludwig in the kitchen, the soft yelp of the scullery maid being woken to a hunter standing in her space, then the low soothing voice Ludwig used to talk people and animals out of fearing him. Heard the soft sounds of the owl that had taken up residence in his attic, the one he refused to have removed because Maria liked owls and Laurence keeping one in the cupola would have delighted her. He heard the distant beat of hooves; hunters patrolling the main streets. It was more soothing that it had a right to be.

He must have dozed, because the next thing he was aware of was the press of a body beside him and someone nudging him up to sitting. He hissed protests but went because he smelled water, and because the flavour of the ashes and meat were still lingering on his tongue.

His hands were shaking badly enough that Ludwig kept a grip on the glass to steady it, a small humiliation Laurence added to the pile and almost convinced himself he didn’t care about. It was just Ludwig seeing him.

Ludwig knew he’d been lower than this. Ludwig had seen it himself.

… Gods. “How do you look at me?” Laurence rasped, and meant it.

Ludwig's fingers twitched against his.

Laurence finished the glass of water and coughed once without meaning to, winced for his own throat.

Ludwig put the empty cup aside and wrapped a too-warm arm around his shoulders. “Hm? I suppose it must be the same way I look at anything else, Laurence.” Ludwig shifted and turned a little, drawing away. Laurence hated himself for following, but he hated himself for a lot of things, and it was hard to excoriate himself when the room was cold and Ludwig smelled good and almost, almost for that moment Laurence could forget the ashes.

“You know what I meant.” Laurence mumbled, and thought about how thoroughly rumpled his robes were going to be after this, and swallowed a sigh. It wasn’t like he’d have to deal with them himself — he had _people_ for that now. People that he… dreaded knowing that he had nightmares. Maybe he could convince them it was from a tryst or something? Most things were preferable to the Ward realizing their Vicar was as afraid as the rest of them.

“I really don't.” Ludwig said, and cupped his hand against the back of Laurence’s neck, rubbed his thumb against the little juts of bone.

Laurence groaned and shut his eyes. “Don’t be a brat, Ludwig. We’re nearly fifty.”

“Hmm? I am certain I must have heard you wrong.” Ludwig mused, apparently deep in contemplation. “Did you just tell me to act my age? You?” His thumb kept stroking down the back of Laurence’s neck, forestalling counterarguments with infuriating efficiency.

Laurence tried to gnash his teeth, and Ludwig pulled him by the waist until Laurence was flush against his side for the effort.

“Are you warm enough, Laurence?” Ludwig asked, like Laurence wasn’t tucked in beside a living heater, heaped with five or six quilts and a few downy blankets besides.

_Burning. I’m burning. Going to turn to cinder._

“I’m fine.” Laurence rasped, and lay his head down. “Have one, if you need it.”

Ludwig hummed somewhere above him, making his chest vibrate. Laurence nuzzled against it, and Ludwig mused, “That might be a little unseemly.”

“Your propriety shows itself at the most inopportune moments.” Laurence muttered, more because it was part of their script than out of any genuine desire to complain. He had known Ludwig a long, long time, knew him like the threaded cane and the scent of fire and the thrill of blood. (Knew him like home, but that was a little trickier for Laurence, who had to wade through a briar patch of guilt and loss to come to _that_ conclusion. Laurence’s home had always been people, and every time it shifted he felt like he’d turned around and stabbed someone beloved in the heart for the change in address.)

Ludwig’s thumb kept running down the line of his backbone, and the awareness that he knew Laurence too — all the little cracks and mistakes and the list of sins fit to make a pardoner blush — was overwhelming. Laurence did not like to be _seen_ by eyes that understood him. It made his stomach hurt and his chest shake, like he was going to break apart from scrutiny.

Ludwig never flinched when he was looking, and that made it so much worse.

Laurence hadn’t been human for a long time; he was just waiting for his body to catch up with his mind. He thought most people knew, because they kept away and they didn't argue when he told them even the most blatant of untruths.

(Gehrman had watched him like that, once, like he could see beneath the surface of genial smiles and soft touches to the beast that had to be revealing itself now. Maria had seen him and not flinched. For a little while Laurence thought maybe it would be alright, but something changed — Laurence got worse or they realized that making friends with monsters didn't protect you from their teeth later.

… no. He was attributing too much of himself to the situation; Gehrman was a stubborn ass who buried fear under pragmatism, and Maria was a vicious harpy with too much curiosity and devotion both. Neither of them would have feared him; both of them had left for reasons nothing to do with him at all. If he wanted to believe otherwise it was because control was most of what he had left.)

(Gods, he wanted them back.)

( _Gods_ , he was terrified of what he’d do if they were returned to him.) 

“The Cathedral might actually bur- _fall_. Fall down,” Laurence corrected, breath catching, and made himself stop before he could think of flames licking at the drapes, the rose window, the belfry. “Without either of us in it, the entire night.”

Ludwig’s grips tightened on his waist and on his neck. “We’ve trained them well,” He said, so mild and reasonable that Laurence wanted to argue with him for sheer spite. (He didn’t. It wasn’t worth arguing, it really wasn’t, because his words were only good for convincing people of things they wanted to believe anyway.)

Ludwig continued, “Either they'll manage by themselves for the evening, or we’ve made a terrible misjudgement and we doom the Healing Church after we go.” He paused a moment and then smiled, belying any seriousness Laurence might have taken him for. “At least this way we can sift through the rubble, hmm?” No. Ludwig was not worried about the church at all right then, but he was worried about something.

His thumb started stroking against Laurence's vertebrae again, and Laurence fairly melted into his side and gave up. “Amelia will cry,” He offered as his last token protest, eyes half-shut. “If it burns.”

Ludwig hummed. “I’ll handle Ame. Worry about yourself a while.”

Guilt squirmed around Laurence’s chest, foreign and unwelcome, an infestation. He was _always_ worried about himself. Why was that so hard to understand? If he could stop for a damn second maybe he could actually fix something—

“You don’t have to stay.” Laurence told him, sounding exhausted and struggling to do anything about it. “You’ve already done too much.”

“Hmm? By what measure?” Ludwig sounded good-humored. 

Laurence let out the sigh that had been building up for most of the evening. “Any.”

“Well—” Ludwig stopped stroking his neck, which left Laurence feeling oddly bereft (another embarrassment, this one something he could swallow down and tell no one about on pain of death.) “I suppose maybe, if we weren’t friends, and you hadn't sat by my bed in the infirmary so many nights.”

Laurence stirred enough to stare at him, alarmed at the implication that Ludwig might try and repay something that was not a debt at all and never should have been considered as one. “That was different. You’re my subordinate-”

“Ah?” Something like metal glittered in Ludwig’s eyes, and his smile; the tilt of his head was dangerously contemplative, the same way he watched an opponent for weaknesses to exploit. “I’ll let you know when I become obedient to your every command.” His voice was teasing, though, and Laurence relented a little because… yes, okay, Ludwig tended to follow his commands, but “tended to” was not set in stone. (For better or worse. He was the Vicar, but he hadn’t trusted himself for a long time. He wasn’t sure if that was a failing or a righteous quality, but he knew it was deeply unpleasant.)

Something tugged at his hair, and he grumbled. Another tug, then something unraveling, and- Laurence narrowed his eyes and sent Ludwig a suspicious look. “Did you just untie my ribbon.”

“No.” Ludwig said, perfectly calm and sensible-sounding while he lied through his teeth. He carded his fingers through Laurence’s hair just after; he was so shameless about the whole thing.

“I think that’s everything, now,” Ludwig murmured, easing his fingers through the tangled locks. Laurence felt light-headed. 

“You’ve made your excuses and I’ve ignored them.” Ludwig continued, pleasant-sounding and a little amused. “Was there anything else?”

“You’re a bastard.” Laurence told him with his eyes half-shut; for a moment something lingered on his tongue that let him forget the taste of ash.

Ludwig chuckled and tugged the handful of hair he had very gently.

Laurence subsided with a little groan, and Ludwig murmured, “Go to sleep. I’ll be here.”

Laurence wanted to argue with him, that he was Vicar and the elder and he would be the one giving the orders. But Ludwig had a hand in Laurence’s hair and another on his waist, and sleep beckoned for Laurence because this was as close as it got to peace for someone awaiting their last judgement. Better than he should have had. Laurence settled where he was and tried not to wonder: when his body caught up to his mind, who would be on the firing line? Whether it would be Ludwig his teeth shut on—

(Gods, please don’t let it be Ludwig.)

Or Amelia, his apprentice, or one of his Harrowed or their hunters, or… no, no, no. That wasn’t here yet. There was no use dwelling on it then.

He focused on the brush of blunt, warm fingers in his hair; short-clipped nails scratching his scalp; the silky drag of the ribbon Ludwig had divested him of, and which was still twisted up in the man’s fingers.

Laurence’s eyes fell shut. He fell into sleep, dark and dreamless, the best he could hope for after making the sort of deals he had, and tried not to worry that his life was the dream and the man pressed against him hip to chest was the demon in charge of making sure he repented.

(If he was, could Laurence even fight? The hand twisted in his hair above and the low pleasant hum from below said ‘no’.)

He felt lips on his temple, heard a melody he would sing to the empty sanctuary when the hunts ran long. It almost drowned out the crackle of flame. Almost.

**Author's Note:**

> some art I did at my beta's request: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/40769031/
> 
> I woke up at like 3am and stayed awake for two hours writing the first draft of this. Loosely inspired by the fact that I was angrily hot under the blankets and freezing out of them, and I'd been playing with the idea that Laurence probably has a fear of fire for at least a few days now.
> 
> Characterization notes: I really don't think you could be friends with someone like Gehrman without having some complimentary neuroses going on. So Laurence is just as obsessive and guilt-prone as he is, it just presents a little differently.  
> Meanwhile Ludwig's characterization is basically 'if you had to deal with this man for almost three decades you would do what you wanted, too' and the fact that the lore we get about him paints an... interesting picture of what sort of person he probably was. He's got Laurence's number here, not that Laurence wants to hear about it.


End file.
